Europe: Western car sales climb 5.8% in September

According to industry figures provided by auto researcher LMC Automotive, Western European new car deliveries increased 5.8% last month, thanks to an extra selling day and upbeat growth in Spain, France and Italy.

The consulting company claims the September new vehicle registrations (passenger cars only), were up to 1.2 million units, with an annual seasonally adjusted selling rate of 12.21 million autos per year. That’s up from August’s SAAR of 11.91 million cars.

While the growth has recently lost its steam, Germany, France and the UK have managed to post positive results last month, after the calendar yielded an extra selling day (as opposed to September 2013). On the other hand, Italy has managed to offset a lagging economic situation and came up 3.3% higher, while Spain continued its spectacular results towards a very vigorous recovery, up 26% last month.

“Ongoing improvements in these two markets are key for sustained growth at a regional level in the medium term,” LMC analyst Jonathon Poskitt said.

The region’s auto market seems to have finally bottomed out after a six-year sales slump that led sales slide towards a two decade low. But the rebound has proven shaky as the buyers are still less than confident about big ticket purchases and there’s political uncertainties in Russia and elsewhere.